Without warning and by increment, a vast influx of people from around the world has changed the city into something like the idealized, happily multiethnic, liberal New York of my childhood.

The vast influx of magic into a magicless space, followed by the Dean wiggling his fingers in the jar, created a new universe.

Those in France are similarly supplied by what amounts to a new invasion of the Moors - the vast influx from the former North African colonies.

One official said that Macedonians were deliberately delaying the processing out of fear that a vast influx of Kosovo Albanians would upset the country's ethnic balance.

This sobriquet was applied to the Shenandoah and Riverside neighborhoods in the 1960s, following the beginnings of a vast influx of Cuban refugees there.

For one thing, the vast influx of foreign journalists, who filled hotels for months on end, contributed to visitor numbers.

And the vast influx of Chinese and other Asians in the past decade has added a bright new thread to the region's gastronomic quilt.

But also a vast influx of refugees who do not know the city's manners.

The Byzantines, unable to cope with the vast influx, allowed them to stay.

Mr. Sharansky agrees that the Government has been very successful in arranging housing, jobs and education for the vast and sudden influx of Russian immigrants.